ISBN: 9780230280137    Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Year of publishing: 2011     Format:  Hardback No of Pages: 264        

Peace-building can be an act of violence. Conflict, on the other hand, may be a crucial means for resisting, constraining and preventing it. Violence occurs when the plural worlds occupied and created by conflicting groups are threatened, damaged or destroyed in ways which these groups cannot resist. 'Transformative' peace interventions may promote this kind of violence unintentionally, unleashing cycles of violence that ultimately compromise peace. Lost in Transformation explores these themes, challenging the assumption that conflict causes violence, and arguing that conflict is a necessary element of non-violence. From this perspective, it reinterprets several phenomena that challenge the 'peace process' in Northern Ireland, including 'dissident' violence and conflictual forms of 'world-building', rioting and 'sectarian' activities. In exploring the case of Northern Ireland, it calls for a new approach to international interventions -- one premised on 'plural world-building' rather than mainstream 'peace-building'.
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AUDRA MITCHELL Lecturer in International Relations at the University of York, UK. Her work on conflict, violence, security, peace and the ethics of international intervention has been published in Review of International Studies, Millennium Journal of International Studies and International Peace-keeping.
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